To Timbouctou by 4 x 4 and back by pinasse

  Timbouctou, Mali
Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Wed 24 January   Mopti
   Up early enough to be in restaurant at 8am to see our man  who is going to show us the car which, naturally enough, doesn't eventuate.  The "big man" is there, and assures the car will turn up. DP head off for some supplies, then into town to find out about flights to or from Timbuktu. Goes to both  airline offices, but no-one there can help. Get better results from a travel agent, but the result is the same - no ticket Timbouctu -Mopti. DP come back hot and bothered to find MP has had no luck with car, even after stirring up the big man at 10.30.
   Decide to head into town at 2pm. Hot walk in, then stop at the "slow" internet to do an hour in the air-conditioned office, including a frustrating upload failure of the photos, but at least we got to look at the Dogon photos, which were pretty flash, and make a selection for uploading.
   Walk to the Bozo Bar, where we have a couple of Pineapple cans, and another excellent Capitaine brochette. Are approached by our original guide, of the poled pirogue trip, who says he can locate a semi-private 4x4 for us, and will meet us later at the hotel.
   Walk through the interesting fish market for photos,

01. Fish market at Mopti

  MP nearly getting his eye poked out by a high, wide load of bamboo chairs on a push cart. Long, hot walk past the old mosque, and into the old town proper. Action Mopti, the so-called fast internet, is down here, 600m off the edge of the map, and "off Ave de l'Independence". Eventually ask at a pharmacy, which is a good source of intelligence. Told down 6 light posts, then told further on, now getting into serious no-man, land, but eventually find a sign. Even then, the building is difficult to enter, but eventually find the room, and madame, and book 2 hours.
   The computers are not particularly flash, have old monitors, all prominently labeled USAID. The computers are linked for desktop simplicity, so we have to do a lot of negotiating to get the Picture card up and running. Have some success uploading, then all the system crashes, hope it isn't our card that did it. Up and running again, we curb our ambitions, and eventually get  40 photos uploaded in 2 hours for 3000Cfa.
     By now it is quite dark out in the narrow alleys, so we tread carefully to avoid broken ankles and dirty feet, thankful that Mali is a safe country. Decide to catch a communal taxi back to the centre. Two people already in our taxi, but both get out before the centre. Pass an accident between a taxi and a motorbike on the way. Our driver feels the need to weigh into the argument forcefully. We keep our head down. Keep going through town, till in the right direction ask where he is going. Says "Palace", we say pas de Problemes, and he ends up delivering us to the door. Very happy to pay the 1000 he asks.
    The English boys are back from Timbuctou by boat, looking pretty burnt out, but brush up OK. Have had a good time, and actually got the luxury pinasse they had been promised for the cheap price of 30,000 cfa.
   Our guide turns up with an offer of a car tomorrow, different to the previous one we'd been offered, we think, but it sounds remarkably similar. There are two American girls, Jill and Amber involved in the negotiations, and we get to meet them. They are not prepared to pay more than 15000, we have been prepared to pay 30000 each, so we have room to move negotiating. Introduced to the 3-price system - our best price, their base price, our next, their next, our final, their final, then the additional from our end to get a contract. End up with 22,500 each for us (the girls are to pay 15,000 - we have an age and wealth tax)and a contract, written by MP, for only 4 people plus driver, 25,000 up front for us, 15,000 up front for the girl. Sign up and pay after sighting the actual car at about 8. When the deal is done, with our guide, for some reason, not the travel agent, who now turns quite pleasant and informative.
    Talk to the group for a while, then hit the sack for a reasonable night, hopeful of an early start.
Thursday 25 Jan Mopti-Timbouctou
 Up before 7, pay up, order breakfast, then run into the older American couple who are back from the Dogon. The girls have gone to get supplies, so DP is about to go  when they return, and the SAME, very good Landcruiser 4WD turns up. The only surprise is that we have an extra passenger, Muhamud, a young guide. Don't realise he is going all the way, but it isn't too cramped for MP with 3 in the front. Don't have to pay the balance immediately. Head out about 8am, stopping to buy bread and water at the main road.
   No aircon on, but we already know this, as we're getting pretty clever at asking the right questions, and when one of the selling points of the car was that it was air-conditioned, we asked if it would be on.  They then admitted that this was the cool season, and they wouldn't be using it! At least we have the windows down, and it is reasonably cool.
  The vehicle is well driven, quiet and handles the speed bumps without rattling, so we look forward to a good trip. We follow the main road all the way to Douentza (179 kms) - good road, generally flat, passing through surprisingly well-grassed sparse woodlands, with muddy water holes beside the road, herds of goats, colourful groups on donkey carts heading for the market where we got some roadside photos.

02. Carts going to market

MP takes a geographic record, which includes the Dogon highlands on the right, and watercourse country on the left, with the Niger somewhere in the distance.
   Stop at Douentza, before the turnoff for Timbuktu (which is another 215 kms away) for a break. Pick up some mangos and another papaya, and take photos of the spectacular rock towers off to the left.

03. Mountains at Douenza

The now-gravel road goes straight past them so get a lot of photos of them and villages, and donkey trains, some with salt slabs.

04. Donkeys with salt from Sahara

The camels

05. Unloaded camel train

bring the salt from the salt mines at Taoudenni (740 kms north of Timbuktu), and it is then dispersed on to donkeys,boats etc.
    This road is being improved, with trucks dumping gravel stockpiles, and the road split into two widely spaced track. The land is getting drier, with flat-topped African trees, large expanses of gravel and sand, but changes again to well-grassed woodlands. The driving is generally pretty good, 60 to 90 km per hour on the road, which is pretty corrugated, but not bad by Australian standards, and 60 km per hour off the road on two-track sandy bypasses, sometimes soft enough to get back to 2nd gear. Very little other traffic on this section, just the occasional clapped out public 4x4. On the main road we saw some amazingly high-stacked vehicles, but didn't think to get photos.
   At one point there was a crashed road grader in the middle of the road - only in Africa!
   The sight of the Niger, about 2pm, after so much sun-blasted wilderness was surreal - wide, smooth, pale green, with pinasses and pirogues reflected, villages on the far side, and a squatters-camp settlement of services at the ferry ramp. Thought that a bogged container truck was blocking access, but managed to sneak past it to get first in line at the large, blue painted steel ferry.
    MP's cry and alarmed face stopped our driver putting one wheel into the gap between the leaves of the ferry ramp, then backed on successfully. MP thought at first we were changing cars, as they said something about ferry being too expensive, but we were just waiting for more cars to share the expense.
   Ended up with four 4x4's - ours

08. How we DID travel - a new (1991) 4 x 4

one public, one other good private, and an older private one, out of which people struggled covered in dust, especially the ones in the back section on the inward-facing seats .The public one was a particularly rough old-style, cart-sprung Toyota, with the local passengers including children, caked in dust, and packed in like sardine.

07. How we DIDN'T travel - the public 4 x 4

Most of them had a good wash off the ramp of the ferry.  We can't believe how lucky we've been. This trip has been portrayed as a 12-hour horror trip, and it has obviously been that for some, but we've managed to have a good trip with practically no discomfit, paying not much more than for the public transport.
   Decided to have our papaya here, but get so besieged by kids asking for "cadeaux", we split up the last of each half to give them all a bit. Work out that some have never tasted it. One girl keeps a piece, but isn't sure she should eat it.  Murray is besieged with all the grasping hands, but all get a piece, with no tears.

06. Distributing papaya on the ferry

Dianne takes a photo.
   The ferry has very strange hi-tech drives in diagonal corners, incorporating propulsion and 360 degree steering, and manages a leisurely pace up the near bank then across for a couple of kms to Korioume, the official port for Timbouctou. Almost no wind, very tranquil on the river. Pass a half submerged steel ferry before arriving in the port in a widened section of the river.
   We have started negotiations with Muhamed for a pinasse out of Timbuktu, as the plane doesn't seem an option, and we don't want to go back the same way. At the port we get off to have a sneak preview of the putative pinasse, a tourist one that looks OK, but nothing flash. The flat roof section is pretty short, but long enough to lie on, possibly at night in hippo country.
   See a very sunburnt tour group arrive by pinasse (about eighteen on the boat so they were very crowded). A lot of 4x4's waiting  for tourists, so obviously more boats expected.
We're  hustled into the car for the short (18 kms) ride to Timbouctou along a gum-tree lined road beside the new canal to Timbouctou financed by Libya. Still has a few kms to go to town. Locals excited by prospect of Timbouctou becoming green again, and they may create a new port.
   The town is certainly nothing flash as we approach, wide, sand, (not sandy) streets, mud brick and colonial limestone buildings, vacant lots, ruins. Stop first at Hotel Colombe 1,2,3 to drop the girls, who are staying at the same house used by the English boys. We want more comfort, and are dropped at Hotel Bouctou, where we get the last aircon room, having looked at the external bathroom rooms on offer and finding them unsuitable. We will have to move out tomorrow, but at least we get to wash ourselves and our gear tonight.
   It is pretty busy, with a large tour group of Dutch people on a budget trip, booking in. Find that we only have cold water, but if we keep the door closed, it steams up a bit, and is not too bad. Take a photo of the chocolate sink water after washing.
   Later have trouble with the post nailed on the bed to hold the mosquito nets. Put it back by hammering with the shoe. Comes off again later, use the bag to support it. The bed base also has a hole in it. It may sound like this is one of those cheapie hotels, but it's actually one of the better ones in town, and we're paying 22500 cfa, or A$55.
             Out to sit on the patio, which has a pleasant outlook over the sandhills, where some Tuaregs are camped, and where the camel rides finish.

09. View from Bouctou Hotel terrace

Muhamud convinced us to meet him at 6pm, and he'd take us to a place where we could have a typical local meal.   Meet with him and his cousin/sidekick, and they take us a long way through the sandy streets to the Patisserie Asco. The mate is determined to sell us a desert trip, including camels despite us continually saying we don't want camels (two previous desert trips on camels were more than enough!). Ambit claims are as high as 150,000 cfa, and even down the cheap end, looked like 30,000, with no guarantee of seeing a camel caravan. Can't make any sort of deal. The American girls are there by chance, but for some reason Muhamed has taken a set against them, and won't negotiate a group price. Later says it is because they don't like Africans (which is a bit surprising seeing they are working with refugees in Ghana), but also later says that they won't pay the price (with the assumption that we're a more promising target).
   Having knocked them back, are a bit apprehensive when they take us back through dark alleys with dark figures, mysterious wet patches on ground, and sewer holes, but eventually end up at the hotel with legs intact. Even the main street has only a few lights in the central part, so you can imagine what the back streets are like!
   Net he tries to sell us his guiding services for tomorrow. Try to get across to him that 10,000 Cfa each is too dear for a conducted tour, and we want a day to ourselves, free of the concentration on fractured conversation. Think we have a deal for a guide-free day.
   Talk to a German freelance travel writer who is surprisingly keen on rugby. We have seen him around at various places. He travels pretty rough, likes a beer, and doesn't take cheek from the locals. Fair night on the broken bed.
Friday 26 January Tombouctou
             We're up before 7am, as want to do so walking before it gets too hot. Immediately met by Muhamed, still trying. Once again say no, and walk around the sandhills,

10. The landscape beyond Timbouctou

and back through some back-streets for our included breakfast of, as usual, bread, jam and tea or coffee.  Starting to think that maybe Muhamed would be a good idea, especially after reading that there is a 5,000 cfa tax to go to Museum, and he's offered to pay the fees.  Just as we're thinking this, Muhamed turns up with his last offer - 15,000 cfa for two, which we accept. We give him 10,000 cfa, and he goes off to supposedly buy the entrance tickets (but we later suspect more likely pay off some people so the fee doesn't have to be paid - we always know that the touts are at least one step ahead of us, but we're not always sure what that one step is, or in fact whether it is one step, or two!)
   Get the tour around the town past the 14th century Dyingerey Ber mosque, which is not as nice as many we've seen.

11. Mosque - under renovation Timbouctou

  Don't go in, and assume it's because it's Friday.

14. Mosque Timbouctou

Also see the houses of various explorers (Gordon Laing Rene Caillie and Heinrich Barth). Take photos of the hemispherical Bella huts side by side with conventional mud-brick houses. Our guide's mother was Bella, and his father is Tuareg, and he says the Bella people are the slaves of the Tuareg (he uses present tense, rather than past tense). Some sort of deal is done at the repository for ancient manuscripts,as he hands over some money, and we get a good translation from another guide, when the curator explains some of the manuscripts, some of which go back to the 12th century, and there are 23,000 in all. Quite amazing that the Arabic in the old documents hasn't changed, and they are readable to modern Arab speakers. Are told they are not being translated, contrary to what the Lonely Planet says. Some were on geometry, medicine etc. Would be fascinating to read the translations. Interesting if the Koranic language is the same as the modern Arabic, how come it is subject to so much interpretation?
   We don't seem to buy tickets to the museum, but get in to see a well a metre deep, reinforced with a lining of tree branches (said to be the well of Bouctou, the old woman who was put in charge of the seasonal encampment for Tuareg nomads back in AD1000, and which later became Tombouctou).

12. Bouctou's well (maybe)

Also see typical tent and brush shelters, and ethnic and historical displays inside.
  We are taken through the old town to the large and small markets. Get some roof views, and photos down into the French colonial market. The Petit Marche is an old style collection of narrow alleys with shade structures, very crowded as it is Friday, and everyone has come into town to go to the mosque.  Much more interesting than the first market, and get some good photos. This show us that Tombouctou is a living city, not just a relic, which is not at all apparent when walking through some of the "main" streets,

13. Main street Timbouctou -sand, not just sandy

particularly at night. We also see at least three big schools, and lots of pupils (including girls) Quite hot in the street now, so our guide palms us off to his "Uncle", who has a house in town, with a Tuareg tent in the courtyard. Take off our shoes and sit on the mat to have tea with him and two young Tuaregs. After the ritual three pour of the tea,

15. Tuareg tea ceremony

each one a sort of toast, MP manages a reasonable conversation with the old man in French. Then comes the hard word, with all three producing bundles of Tuareg artifacts. The process is to pick out possible items of interest, then go through the 3-price ritual. Look at some silver bracelets, but the ones of interest have flaws in the casting, and would break easily. DP expresses an interest in some Agate necklaces, but they want too much. Are thinking of settling for 5000, when they mention that the agate offered in Mopti is probably plastic. MP then take a harder look at the so-called agate, finds bubbles in some, and holes which could not have been drilled in agate, which is as hard as glass. We are polite, but leave them in no doubt we think they are fake.
  A leather-mounted Tuareg passport, of cast brass, traditionally used as an identification for nomad tribes is interesting, but a bit grotty for evening wear, so DP settles on another small beaded camel tooth necklace for 7000, which we know is an inflated price, but we want to pay for their hospitality, plus supposedly they take money back to the people still in the desert.
   Escape back to the hotel for a break, as too hot to do anything else. Murray spends most of the afternoon negotiating a boat back to Mopti while he sits in the foyer writing the diary. Our man's prices seem to vary to as high as 100,000 cfa  each. Tell him we're not interested, and will see what the US girls come up with. Turns out they had a boat for 35,000 each, but they turned it down as it was too high, although  from the same guide that did a deal for the boys. When we talk to this guide later,he tells us this boat has gone, getting towed back to Mopti behind a commercial one.
   We finally meet someone (not sure how he turned up - just did, as the word got out that two tourists were looking for a boat) who can cut a  deal, a very articulate English speaker, currently doing a PHD at Bamako University. With DP at the Internet, MP cuts a deal for 2 for 60,000 cfa each,  with a 20,000 discount if the two girls come. Price  include transport to the port, and fish and sauce food. The US girls turn up, and cut another take-it-or-leave-it deal for 30,000 cfa each. We meet the boatmen, see the tents, and hand over our deposit.
   Meanwhile DP is back and falls for a sob story from an old Tuareg, helped by a young interpreter, and ends up buying more necklaces. After handing over the money, sees the interpreter laughing with the same man, and re-enacting the sob story. Unfortunately the rip-off merchants know what to say to make the tourists part with money - when they are genuine cases, you tend to disbelieve them because of this.
   At this stage, we take stock of our money, and find we are running pretty short. DP pays the hotel bill, then has to change some Euros to
 get our final payment, and allow some for water.

16. Sunset with camel - Timbouctou

 By this stage, we are running late for our dinner date with a Dutch lady tourist, so get our act together. She is late, but eventually set off to find the Restaurant Amanar - reasonably straightforward as described in the LP, but a long way up town, off the map.
   On the way we develop an entourage of young boys, learning English, and hoping for some sort of commission. We find the kids here quite OK. They try it on for a "cadeaux", but once they know it's not forthcoming, they either leave, or stay because they're happy to practice their English, or French, and besides, there is nothing else interesting for them to do. However the Dutch woman was quite rude to them, and wanted nothing to do with them.  Starting to appreciate what some locals have told us - some tourists don't like Africans (are probably frightened by them). They can tell we treat them no differently to anyone else.
By the time we reach the edge of our map, we have lost the street lights, and the landmark for the restaurant is not visible. We carry on a few blocks in the dark, but our friend is nervous, and MP not much better.
   Decide to abort the visit, and go back to the more easily found Poulet d'Or, but still have to use back streets in the pitch dark, along the sand streets, past a donkey carrying slabs of salt, guided by the boys. Ask bystanders if it is open, and are assured it is. When we get there, they turn on the lights, and show us the menu, but we don't like to have people start meals from scratch, so head back to the bright(er) lights. DP is dying of thirst, so we find a shop which has Coke in Pet bottles, so buy three, and 3 cans of pineapple for our trip before trying the Colone Hotel, where our friend had dined before. The place is fully booked, but they manage to find a table on the terrace, and drum up a good meal of soup and Spaghetti.
    The Dutch woman is horrified when the waiter takes her empty plate. Gives him a lesson in Dutch table etiquette, MP having to translate. The waiter and Maitre de are very professional and  good humoured, so we come out of it OK, especially when we say all nationalities do thinks differently, and in Australia any way is OK. we have to add forgotten items to the bill, then walk back to the hotel after the Dutch woman buys some trinkets.
   At the hotel, accosted by our guide, who insists we buy water tonight, as none in the morning. DP gives 6000 to a mystery man who comes back some time later with 8 rather dusty water bottles. A late try for more change is unsuccessful, so we set the alarm for 6.30 and kip down.
             We don't feel the need to stay any longer in Timbuktu.  We're glad we came, and the journey was easier than expected, and the town was what we expected - living on its past, rather than its present.
   Saturday 27 Jan Tombouctou- towards Mopti
   Manage to cash another 20 euros, so better placed for unknown expenses. Actually get away on time at 6.30am. Pick up the US girls, down to the port, crossing the new, empty section of the Libyan canal on the way.
   Our boat looks pretty good - for once we're hopping on the best boat in the port,

17. Our pinasse is the middle, upmarket one

not the worst. It has a flat roof,which you can sit on when not too hot, a diesel engine, and a number of long benches with cushions on them, along the side, as well as a large table, and a separate kitchen. Compare this with the more down-market private pinasses which just have benches cross-ways, and up to 18 people on them.  With only four passengers, we have the run of the boat. Crew looks like four, not three as told, so obviously one extra person has materialised.  Take a photo of a large sheep farewelling us. Shortly after we learn another question to ask before signing contracts.  We'd asked how many people on board, but had omitted to ask "how many animals?"  It turns out Mr Sheep is also coming along for the ride.

18. Mr Sheep as passenger

We don't mind, as he gives us a bit of "street cred", and keeps us amused during the somewhat boring days.  Away by about 7am. Very still on the water, quite chilly when we get up to speed, about 10 knots. Photo of the sunrise, port, fishing pirogues.
We soon settle into the rhythm of the days.  The scenery doesn't change much.   A series of dry, dusty villages with thousands of kids, fishermen in pirogues (from whom we buy some fish for lunch and dinner), overloaded pinasses, quite a few birds, and just the nostrils of a couple of hippos.
The day starts cold, then warms up, then gets hot on one side of the boat, then gets HOT everywhere.  We sit sweating (literally) for the sun to lose some of its fierceness. Monotony is broken stopping in Dire in the morning, with the aim of getting some (very dry and unappetising) grass for Mr Sheep, and later by rescuing an overloaded pinasse in distress.  Its motor has broken down, so we give a hand, then nudge it to a bank in the middle of the river, so that if it does sink, people can hop ashore.  They eventually get the motor going, and we then have to drag it off the bank.  Eventually it is on its way. In the meantime, we've had a good up-close look at the inside - definitely glad we haven't taken a public pinasse!  Also stop at a hole-in-the-wall village while one of the crew hops off and runs into the village.  After 20 minutes or so he returns, and we find he has just visited Mum and his younger sister.  Because of the various stops

20. Photo of first sto

we're running late, so they decide to keep going in the dark. It is quite pleasant in the cool of the evening, with a half moon, and the evening star. Eventually stop about 9pm in Niafounke, the only large town for miles.  Suspect the choice may have had something to do with someone's social life, as only appears to be one of the crew around later. We'd been expecting to camp on a deserted beach, not on a beach which is used as the public toilet of a large town. This fact became very obvious as we approached the beach. They set up tents for us, and we get extra mattresses as we don't have a blanket, and think we may be able to use them as one.  We get into our thermals, and then the silk sheet sleeper, and lay the sarong and warm tops over us.  Provided we don't move, we're almost warm enough. The public pinasse

25. What you get on overloaded public pinasse -

from Mopti arrives at the wharf, and there is an incredible din for a while as it is unloaded.  Barring no holdups, the people have been on it for at least two days, so can understand their excitement. Have quite a good nights sleep, only interrupted by the local dogs making an incredible noise at various stages.
Sunday 28th January Niger River towards Mopti
Out of bed by 6am, and soon away. Buy fish for the day from a local who has obviously been fishing all night. Later one of the fish is dropped overboard while being cleaned, and a rescue mission is mounted, which involves at least a half dozen attempts at picking it up. Just as they get close enough, the swirl from the motor sends it away, and we go around again. While all this was going on, Murray was in the toilet, which was very interesting for him.  Because we are such an up-market boat, we have a toilet with four sides (rather than one side open to the public). It is a flimsy wooden structure, with a throne with a hole in it, and a metal discharge tube, with access to the water.  To reach it you have to walk along a narrow walkway on the edge of the boat, holding on  to a very flimsy framework made from reinforcing bar.  When you get to the engine area the walkway becomes greasy   (you would understand why if you could see the ancient, oily motor ). There is a short no-man's land where you have nothing to hold on to, then there is a rather scary loosely nailed wooden frame that you're not game to put much pressure on. The actual toilet structure is a loosely nailed frame covered in plywood 

19. The view from the toilet ( the blue box)

Too much force in any one place would have the whole thing disintegrating. Also, because of the deep location of the rudder, the boat tilts alarmingly when turns are made. The  whole boat has similar traps for the unwary - the table has a leg which just sits there, and is dislodged whenever anyone touches it. It has a couple of large nails sticking out one side obviously at some stage someone had a good idea which was subsequently abandoned. One rib behind the seat cushion has a bolt protruding at mid-back level.

2. View of our pinasse's seating

The kitchen area has pieces of wooden boards on the floor, which move to an alarming degree when you stand on them.  Also has pieces of straw matting covering them, and underneath this is very oily water (the engine is behind it) which needs to be bailed out every now and then.

24. Kitchen (and floor) in the pinasse -not ideal

  This description will give you some idea of what you get for your money when you go up-market.  It would be interesting to hear the impressions of some of the up-market tourists.
The fish we had to rescue was quite unusual, quite big with a long down-pointing snout, more like a reef fish. 

22. We choose our fish from the overnight catch

  Were glad we asked for fish for all meals, rather than meat or chicken  (particularly now we've got Mr Sheep), however we were envisaging freshly caught, fried fish, which we've found to be great.  Instead the fish is cleaned, then cut into hunks and left in the sun for a few hours, then cooked in a tomato type sauce and served with   (so far) rice, couscous or pasta.  Leaving in the sun seems to break down the texture of the fish.
   Late in the afternoon we hit a sandbar with a fair bit of speed and force, but they manage to get us off.  We stop at the village of Acco(?), which seems even more depressed than normal, with dust swirling all around, on the opposite side of the river to nearby Youvarou, which is shown on the map, for bread. Have a lot of children asking for empty water bottles, and anything else that is going.
   At about 2pm we enter Lake Debo. Take photos of the panorama, then small, inhabited  islands, before running a marked channel across the lake, to enter a wetland area, with a narrow channel

26. Lake narrows to narrow channel

through floating weeds. This firms up into a definite winding channel, only 30 metres wide, between increasingly high banks. Good views from the roof of the pinasse over the wetlands, with fishing villages right on the banks, with fishing and domestic scenery. A lot of grass-roofed mud brick homes. Women are doing ablutions ( pretty casual about modesty), and lots of children waving.
  They have a lot of netting fish traps in the channels which drain water from the wetland behind into the main channel, with a lot of fish jumping in them. Most of the river bank is netted, and at some places, the nets become enclosures in the river. The banks become progressively higher, until they are up to high water level. Lots of kingfishers, egrets, herons and cormorants, but not in masses. We continue at fairly low speed right through the beautiful twilight time, and into the night, proceeding slowly because of the low water, but only hitting one more sandbank.
   We eventually stop about 9pm, after finishing another meal, this time fish and a rice/sauce paste, this time with a much stronger, and less edible, dry fish taste. The village we stop at seems to have a lot of activity, suspect the crew may have friends here. Do a fair bit of maneuvering among the parked pirogues to get a  position opposite a bare area, which looks like sand, but is rock-hard. After they set up the tent we carry our gear up, but decide we would like less slope, so carry the whole tent with mattresses in it, up to the level, yet still hard, area beyond.
   Settle in with just the sheet sleeper and the large, thin mattress over us. Looks like we will be warm for the night, but remember our anti-malaria (which is more important than normal as Murray was bitten by a mosquito yesterday, which was full of blood when we killed it),so have it with condensed milk, and have to sit up until it has absorbed enough not to give us ulcers.
   For some reason, the kids in the village are still up and about, and a horde of them descends on the two tents, chattering and calling out "toubab" (white person - a very common refrain around here ). Seemed closer to the girls' tent, but no real hassle. The boat men called out something to them, and eventually they dispersed.
   MP had a better night, DP worse, but at least we were warm without the need for thermals.
   Monday 29 Jan Niger river - Mopti
   Up before the 6am start. Get into our thermals before unpacking the tent, MP careful to empty the tent, having  been given back his missing glasses last night, which were found in the packed tent. Take early photos,

21. Early start before sunrise - Niger River

and discover a colourful mosque across the sand flats. Walk across for photo while we wait, but get better photos as it gets lighter.
  All on the boat at 6.30. Have a bit of trouble getting off the hard, screwing the boat each way, with no attempt to walk it by getting us, the movable ballast, to go front and back. Eventually, using the engine in reverse, we break the link which holds the prop shaft forward, and the prop shaft slips out of its spline (Murray the engineer keeps us informed - the crew are completely silent on what is happening).
  Stop the engine to consider. Meanwhile, all the village is coming down for water while we breakfast, as well as donkeys coming to unload a pirogue full of large sacks of grain, so we have plenty to occupy us while we wait. One 14 year old girl has her mind set on our jam jar, which is almost empty. Has some water bottles taken off her by a boy, but gets the jam jar, and seems pleased. We remember the bread emergency supply we have, and  DP gets mobbed trying to distribute it, and a few get, and keep, a lot, rather than all get a little.
   Have to dismantle the propeller shaft packing box, untying the cloth and string which seal it, then removing the 4  strips of bicycle tyre which form the water-lubricated bearing. Set the shaft back into the spline after moving the boat to deeper water, then bend the bike tyre strips back over the stern pipe and bind them, refit the string and cloth seal, retie the tension link, which is multiple strands of synthetic string between the universal joint and two bolts on the shaft. African Technology! It works, and off we go, good as new, about 8.30, a couple of hours later than planned.
   Just beyond the village is a series of fish traps right across the river, with a narrow navigation passage on the left bank.

27. Fishing traps spread across the channel

One trap has a big fish flapping in it.
   Proceed slowly through the winding channel with high banks, keeping a close look-out for more sandbars. Get photos of birds, coco-palms, villages. The village now have coco-palms, mangoes and other trees, and look more prosperous and green, and less dusty.
   After a couple of near misses, the channel opens out and we pick up some speed at about 10am, and finally arrive in Mopti about 2pm.

28. Unloading one of the crewman and his gear